When the stage opened last weekend at the Muson Centre, Onikan, Lagos, it was clear that the play was written to refresh the history of Pyrates Confraternity, the Seadogs. Written by Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, Wheels of Justice situates the reasons he and his gang formed the group in 1952. The play is bright, diligent and delightfully punchy. Edozie Udeze who watched the play writes on the lessons and sentiments thrown open in the play and lots of issues pertaining to Nigerian nationhood.
IT was exactly seventy years ago. The year was 1952. The venue was the University College, Ibadan, now The University of Ibadan, Oyo State. The seven musketeers were undergraduates of the University College. Full of ideas and bubbling with unbridled energy, they refused to be mowed down by the English ideals infused into the social and cultural and academic lives of the students by the colonial masters and their cronies.
The seven students were led by Wole Soyinka, an Abeokuta boy, an English major who was just 19 years of age. Soyinka and his colleagues were uncomfortable with the Englishness of the students in which one had to wear bow tie or jacket or Western habits within the campus. This irked them to their marrow. As a form of protest against such strange and foreign imposition, Soyinka assembled students of like minds. They came together, brainstormed and finally formed the Pyrates Confraternity otherwise known as the Seadogs. Thus, they pitched their tent against the University authority and all other norms and groups that were English in outlook, operation and nomenclature.
History has it that these seven students also in their early 20s henceforth chose to lead a different social life style on campus. They formed a group that believed in keeping afloat the local habits of the people. No more eating with cutleries. No more wearing of ties to classes under the hot and unbearable Ibadan weather (for this actually some local Ibadan people fell in love with them). No more speaking of English in borrowed foreign accent. No more adopting of English language as the only language of communication or conversation on campus.
Henceforth, they decreed in their codes that local songs and dances would be used to celebrate the confraternity and the issue of guerrilla style would be officially applied to questions and objections to the obnoxious principles of the colonial lecturers on campus. Thus, the scene was created by Soyinka and company to start a fresh era on campus where students were free to live their natural life.
From the beginning, the Pyrates was made to be an action force given to guerrilla style and tactics. With this they were able to effect their demands. In the beginning also the question of what name to adopt by the group was a bit knotty. But in the end it was agreed that Seadogs would be added to it as an appendage. And so the name stuck up till today. Last weekend at the Muson Centre, Lagos, guests, members of the confraternity, art enthusiasts, lovers of stage theatre, all, gathered to watch a play to celebrate the 70 years anniversary of the Seadogs.
The evening was tagged an evening with Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, featuring his latest drama-Wheels of Justice. Directed by Dr. Tunde Awosanmi of the University of Ibadan, the play has all the ingredients and trappings that eulogize the Pyrates and all they stand for. It laid clear the early years, the teething problems, the background and all that led to the formation. The play harps on the ideals of the Seadogs. It shows reasons why guerrilla approach is adopted by the group and why it has become a pressure group, more or less.
It is a play full of metaphors, hyperboles and innuendos that applies dance drama to effect. The opening of the stage made it clear that the Pyrates like to gyrate a lot. “We celebrate our sailings and meetings with plenty of dances and songs”, the narrator, Nissi George announced as an opener. Dressed in their usual and familiar regalia of black trousers and white shirts with a sprinkle of red monkey jackets, the stage quickly came alive with a big teaser. The narrator bristled with everything Soyinka as he regaled himself in his usual bohemia and urbane life style. With the usual trademark of afro hair style and bushy beards, he elegantly strolled around the stage while drawing attention of the audience.
As he strolled elegantly to and fro, he demonstrated in words and action why the formation of the group was apt and inevitable. “The white man came here and wanted to suffocate us with their life style. But we say no, this cannot happen in Africa”, George said. “And here we said no for we have our own life to live. We therefore stood opposed to everything British in manners and in habits”.
Before the stage came truly alive there was a zoom conversation with Soyinka from his base in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. The session was handled by Olu Ajayi, master painter and colourist who is one of Soyinka’s protégés. Soyinka as usual handled questions on a number of issues-literature, social norms, and other cultural biases. For instance, Mr Sam Omatseye of The Nation Newspapers asked him why he has declared in an interview that henceforth he would be paying more attention to writing dramas as against prose and poetry. “Yes”, Soyinka enthused, “drama never ends. But in prose you have the liberty to exhaust all you have. I know more people love to read novels; the stories are stimulating. However, I have chosen to concentrate on plays because the story never ends. It goes on and on and on.
“I respect those who have chosen to concentrate on prose as their medium. Novels are more elaborate; gives you more space to explore. It is also tasking. If you are lucky your prose can be translated into a film. But in drama you can interpret it on stage straight away. On stage you make the message stick, you reinvent issues in plays. Then the actors take over from there. Plays need constant interrogation of themes, ideas, issues and so on”.
Read Also: Mothers should rise up for MohBad’s justice – Sister-in-law
As expected, his answers elucidated the necessary reactions from the audience, more so the Pyrates. Thus, the tone was set for an awesome evening of songs, dances, conversations all revolving around the tenets of Nigerian society, a society that defies all manner of definitions and solutions. With the stage constructed in form of a hostel where there is an opening decking on top, actors felt free with movements on stage and backstage. The simple nature of the building gave vent to the local ideals the Pyrates agitated for in those days at the University College. But more than that, the role of the narrator, one of Nigeria’s brightest stage crafts-masters enlivened the soul of the evening. As the hall wore bright hope of an evening of profound delight, the cast and crew tore through the lugubrious stages of social and political life of this nation.
It shows where a system is systemically problematic, punctured and pessimistic. It shows where leaders are clownish and self-centered. It also shows how foolish and inordinate the followers are. It shows how the guerrilla tactics can be used effectively to make a case. References were made about Mau-Mau in Kenya and South African guerrilla led by Nelson Mandela that effected the desired changes in both societies. The play is on those funny tactics adopted by politicians to deceive and woodwink the populace. It shows how elections are rigged and how Nigerian leaders dodge appearances in court to face the law. So on and on, the actors ripped apart the cadre of idiocy in Nigeria in ways that only Soyinka’s plays can replicate. But above all, the dance drama aspect of the show rippled with fun. The dances hoover on the issues that trouble the land. The songs are like tremors, as they lampoon leadership, dissecting in the process a cosmetic political system. Nigeria is fraught with injustices, no doubt, where the law is meant only for the poor.
Awosanmi who directed the play confessed that those elements of dances and songs are to help bring nearer home the whole import of guerrilla tactics. “We use songs to celebrate and disseminate certain information. The songs make communal life more bearable. The guerrilla messages are also passed across through these songs. Dances bring out our local beliefs and norms. We celebrate because we have reasons to. Yet, they do not remove the social issues embedded in the play itself rather they enhance them”.
In making the play an Eldorado of sorts Awosanmi included some of his students, he spiced the cast with some of Nigeria’s best and tested stage master actors and actresses. With this combination coupled with the simplicity of the costumes, the play truly justified its Wheels of Justice. No doubt, the play loaded with pyratical anecdotes where you have siege, short gun, a little to the left and other metaphorical and hyperbolic slogans that help to define the confraternity. All of which harbor on the nation’s slow and confused movement in all spheres and where the judiciary is probably found wanting.
